Weak sales of printer toner show that many firms are not rushing a return to the office in the wake of the coronavirus lockdowns.
Context bean counters have added up some numbers and reached the conclusion that the UK is behind the rest of Europe trying to get workers back to their old desks.
The firm found that toner is one of the products that is closely linked to workplace presence, and examined four week rolling sales through distribution in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
The results were that the UK lagged behind other most other European countries in terms of staff returning to offices, with only Norway, Denmark, the Baltics and Brazil registering slower rates of a shift away from mass working from home.
There are a host of reasons that could explain the situation in the UK, with concerns about public transport, issues around the effectiveness of the Test and Trace system and a lack of vaccine all being contributors.
Context CFO and global managing sector, Adam Simon said that the UK’s return to work index shows the power of IT channel data in discerning wider societal and macroeconomic trends.
“The UK may be lower down the table due to many factors, not least the government’s preference for issuing advice rather than orders to businesses. But it’s clearly data that they’ll want to keep a close eye on, give the major economic implications”, he added.
